The latest ridiculous deal: Alan Greenspan’s memoir for $7 million. The hell of it is that it’s all riding on a ten-page proposal. For that kind of advance, you’d think Greenspan would extend the proposal by at least twenty pages. If I were publishing the memoir, I’d demand details! Perhaps a chapter devoted to a spry young Greenspan shacking it up with Ayn Rand for a night of wild animalistic sex. That’s what people buy memoirs for.

When a teenager has a “porn problem,” he’s taken aside by his parents for a stern but frank talk about sexuality. Alas, Google is no teenager. It’s a major company — indeed, one might argue, an orphan. So instead of the talk, some folks are suing them.

Centuries later, folks are still arguing over how Shakespeare died. Some say a tumor over the left eye. Some say that the Bard suffered a delayed midlife crisis and attempted to shadow fence himself, with unfortunate mortal consequences. The more eccentric experts, however, suggest that Shakespare actually didn’t die at all and that his body was frozen in a primitive form of cryogenics. This last possibility was apparently where Walt Disney got the idea from.

Also, that Atwood signing machine looks pretty cool, and useful for a variety of purposes – but that kind of takes the fun out of signatures. I think that seeing the author in person is the biggest thrill when it comes to signatures. This would be like sending someone to get a signature for you. Eh.